Thursday, February 4th, 2010
OK. Edits are officially locked on “The Dead Can’t Dance.”
That doesn’t mean the film is finished, it just means that editing is complete (a HUGE feat nonetheless). Now I make a Quicktime file of the film and send that to our brilliant sound designer Sergio Snmiguel, who will edit and mix the final audio.
While he’s doing that, I will continue to do color correction and image manipulation with Red Giant’s Look filters, which are amazing. I’m giving the movie a very aged, B-movie look, with film scratches and a color reversal-film appearance. It’s going to be cool. I just can’t move anything around on the timeline in Final Cut Pro while doing this, or Sergio’s final audio file won’t sync up (hence the term “picture locked”).
I’m ecstatic to be at this point, absolutely. We’re thisclose to being done. Simply amazing.
On other fronts, I’ve started redesigning the Harmy site, and will update that frequently. And now I’ll turn more energy to the promotion phase, and finalize our screening here. Should have details on that within the next week, hopefully.
So keep an eye out. Things are going to move fast now. And I can’t wait.
-r.
Tags: The Dead Can't Dance, zombies
Posted in Inspiration, Picture editing, The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 11th, 2010
I had a nice holiday and New Year’s, and spent some much, much needed time away from “The Dead Can’t Dance.”
It just completely consumed me, and that wasn’t healthy. I needed to get the first cut out, and I set an ambitious deadline for myself. I just can’t explain it. I had to get it out, the festival deadline was really just secondary. Wade mentioned that I needed to just take my time, that there are other festivals. I know that, and while it created insane stress, it had to be that deadline to make it real. Sure, thousands of others are vying to get into the festival. But you can’t get in unless you try.
And I think the deadline was also like closure, in a weird way. I had been working on the film non-stop throughout the whole year. And I think I needed to feel like it was worth it, to have something to show for it. Sure I could just edit every now and then, but It’s kind of like writing, if you don’t have an ending in mind, you’ll just keep writing and writing, and go on and on.
So I spent a few weeks just letting the film sit, and I didn’t look at one frame. And since I didn’t have much time throughout the year as I normally do to see movies, I tried to catch up on films I missed before compiling my top 10 list of 2009 for my film column.
It was really inspiring to see lots of beautiful work, and made me anxious to get back to my film, which is good. But I still made myself wait a bit.
Until this past weekend, and I must say it felt fantastic to dig back in again. It was kind of like visiting old friends. And going back in with fresh eyes was amazingly helpful. I was able to tighten up some sections that were bothering me, and I’ve shaved 4 minutes from the first act, which it desperately needed (that doesn’t sound like it much, but believe me, that’s a lot). Also doing a little prelim sound work before I turn it over to our sound designer, but I”ll let him handle the artistry of it.
Still no festival news, but that’s a good thing. No news is good news. Otherwise, we have our next few months pretty much planned out with festivals we want to submit to, and it kicks off with a bang in February, then we’ll start sending this baby out and see who bites. Hopefully someone.
But I feel really good about “The Dead Can’t Dance,” again. Especially after the break and working on it more. It’s leaner. It’s fun. I hope it’s original. And I hope it connects with audiences on different levels. We’ll just have to wait and see.
But much more work in store for now. As soon as I get picture locked with final color treatment and correction, I have to turn to PR duties. I need to redesign the Web site, recut a new trailer, post pictures and upload a press kit to the festival submission service (which, by the way, whoever invented Withoutabox.com, the Web site that specializes in festival submissions, is a genius. You will get to know it well when you submit your film to festivals).
I think it’s going to be a good year.
Here’s to the new journey — whatever it holds in store,
-r.
Posted in Inspiration, Picture editing, The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction, zombies | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
I can’t reiterate how much courage this all takes.
Any artistic endeavor is the baring of a soul. But filmmaking is its own vicious beast.
I know that. This is my third feature. And heading into “The Dead Can’t Dance” I knew this was certainly my most ambitious endeavor so far — I was upping the ante completely across the board. I tried my best to prepare myself, to strap on the invisible armor and run head-first into the prickly gauntlet. But it took a lot of mustering and soul searching.
Through many parts of this production process, as it kept getting bigger and more unwieldy, I had an unwavering feeling that I was going to let everyone down. That it was a waste of everyone’s time, energy and resources — most of all, mine.
But somehow, I kept scraping my confidence off the floor — like it was old chewing gum that had been stepped on — and I amazingly made it through.
That was only that phase of the journey, though. As I wind down on post-production and as we start submitting to film festivals, I have to assemble even more sets of armor.
It’s not that I haven’t experienced rejection before — I could wallpaper my bathroom with the amount of rejection letters I’ve gotten from festivals. And being in a business that is built on rejection, if you can’t take it, then go bake a nice cake somewhere.
I just have to prepare myself. More energy to muster, from somewhere, and armor to build.
But the opinions won’t stop there. As “The Dead Can’t Dance” starts to shape into an actual watchable movie, there will be no shortage of opinions — good and bad, eloquent and harsh, helpful and ignorant.
For some reason, people just think they can say anything to you about your movie. I bet if it were a painting, it would be different. I doubt someone looked at Picasso and said, “You know, you might want to straighten those eyes out.”
But my own worst critic is myself.
I think I’m having more trouble watching myself and my performance this time. I hope I bring gravity to my character. Acting is at least the one thing I’m trained at. I honestly love it and the process, but it’s what I get to spend the least amount of time on, which is scary.
And while I’m not handsome nor charismatic, I’m OK with that. But photographing yourself at your most vulnerable — and blowing that up 200 feet for everyone to pick apart and scrutinize — takes yet a different set of armor.
This time around, I’m finding myself more emotional about the whole thing. Maybe more is at stake. Maybe it’s just the holidays. Or maybe it’s all in my head. This has certainly been overwhelming, and I haven’t really had a break all year.
I do realize that I’m not changing the world. I do realize it’s only a frickin’ zombie movie. But it’s mine. I just have to remember that, and just please myself.
Because while I know I lack the talent, that won’t stop me — I have to do this because it’s what I want to do. I hope I have the perseverance.
Or at the very least, the armor.
-r.
Posted in Inspiration, The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction | 2 Comments »
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Editing is going great. I’m an hour into the film now, and really happy with how most of it is coming together.
I jammed last week, working on all night on the movie, sleeping for a while, going to work, then coming home to do it all over again. But I absolutely love it.
This is when all the hard work of shooting pays off. This is when it finally — FINALLY — starts to look like a movie. It’s flowing pretty well, and I particularly spent a lot of time editing the zombie sequences.
First it took me a awhile to pick the music I wanted, because that affects how it will cut together. And anything goes here. Slow-motion, dissolves, jump cuts, it doesn’t have to be real time, so it was a blast editing that stuff together. One sequence in particular is awesome, a long shot with Guy and Randall running through a hallway of zombies. That one shot took us about 8 hours to get, from lighting through blocking and then final takes. It lasts about 30 seconds.
The entire sequence is longer than that, of course, because it cuts nicely with other shots that worked fabulously. I can’t wait to share this with people. It’s going to be cool.
And so far, I love the tone of it all. I’ll need to look at it overall when I have everything laid down for pacing, and I know I’ll have to tighten up the beginning a little, but this is going to have a cool, hyper-realistic tone about it. Almost gothic, kind of like a comic book. I love it.
Audio will take a lot of work, and we knew it would. We tried our best, but there were just things out of our control (trains, planes, people driving by). Hopefully we can clean it up, but that’s a whole different phase (and one I’m secretly dreading, but it’ll come much later).
The performances, also, are great. It’s really weird watching myself, though. My character is such a high-strung control freak. Not saying that I’m not like that in real life, but, hey…
So I’ll tackle more editing this week, as well. On tangent stuff, we held callbacks for the radio announcer part on Saturday, and think we may have it cast after we get two more people to read, and we’ll meet with someone this week to get work started on the title sequence. And 2nd A.D. Craig is busy rounding up more CDs from local bands who want to submit. We want to use as much local talent as possible.
Today I’ve been cleaning and doing mountains of laundry, just trying to get caught up on life in general. I miss everyone. I haven’t seen much of my family lately, or anyone really. I haven’t seen my nephew TJ or my nieces since the wrap party. I miss them.
But all in due time, slowly it feels like I’m able to catch my breath. but with an impending festival deadline, it looks like I won’t really get to slow down until December. Oh my gosh — DECEMBER??!! When did this happen?
Better get back to work, then. I have to fold my socks. And by fold, I mean dump into a drawer.
Have a good week,
-r.
Posted in Inspiration, Picture editing, The Dead Can't Dance, acting, postproduction, zombies | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Had a fantastic time at last weekend’s Tallgrass Film Festival here in Wichita. The opening night was great with the screening of “The Only Good Indian,” and the crowds were hoppin’ at the beautiful old Orpheum Theatre.
It was especially fun for me because the Tallgrass staff asked me to host the Q&A after the screening, so after the film, I took the stage along with director Kevin Willmott and star Wes Studi. They’re both just such great guys, and it was really nice to see them again.
We talked about many things at the Q&A, mainly on independent film and the themes of “TOGI,” then opened it up for questions from the audience.
A really cool nite, good buzz, good energy.
The rest of the weekend was packed with stuff, as well, and we all went to the closing night film at Wichita State University and the after-party there at the Ulrich Museum.
But yesterday I was just completely wiped out. I still haven’t really gotten a chance to catch my breath. Through the hectic roller coaster ride of four months of shooting literally right up until organizing the wrap party, then immediately writing about and covering the film festival and now heading into an ambitious post-production schedule, I’ve just been so overwhelmed for so long, I’m beginning to feel numb.
It’s all been good, but, WOW.
And, as I tend to ignore my body and mind telling me to just take a break already, editing on “The Dead Can’t Dance” has OFFICIALLY BEGUN. I have the opening scene cut, and worked on it till about 5 this morning. I just got carried away. It’s very rough, of course, but it’s going to be very cool. I’m pumped!
So, I’ll be back at it tonight (and most nights now), but tonight I’ll also try to make a dent in my mountain of laundry.
Here’s to clean socks and movies,
-r.
Tags: Tallgrass Film Festival, The Dead Can't Dance
Posted in Inspiration, The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction | No Comments »
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Met with my A.D. Brandon last night, and we knocked out a post-production schedule for the next month or so. It’s pretty ambitious, as is everything with this movie. We’d like to submit a rough cut to a festival by Dec. 12.
If anything, it’s a least a measurable goal. I need to now channel some energy toward music, as well as start actually cutting this thing. I will also get the teaser trailer online in the next day or so.
But this weekend, I’ll be covering the Tallgrass Film Festival here in Wichita for my film column that I write in The Wichita Eagle.
It looks like it’ll be a good fest, especially since “The Only Good Indian” is the opening night film.
I went out to Sundance in January when the film premiered. I worked on the A.D. crew as extras coordinator and I have a teensy role in the very opening scenes of the film. It’ll be fun to see it again (Guy and Mark are also in it briefly). So a bunch of my crew is going tomorrow night. Wes Studi, who stars, will be here in town to promote the film. Should be really cool.
The film has been making the festival rounds, and it will screen next month at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco, which has treated us really well in the past (and I look forward to screening “The Dead Can’t Dance” there).
So, lots of things going on. You can read my film column online here.
Have a great movie-going weekend!
-r.
Posted in Inspiration, The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction | 1 Comment »
